Part two in a series of interviews with Steve Cochran about the Open Space session he facilitated at Green Cities Florida. This time, he spoke with Kimberly Miller of Green Cities Media.

 

 Green Cities : Steve Cochran [6:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

I’m Kimberly Miller with Green Cities Media here with Steve Cochran on site in Orlando. Hi Steve, how’s it going?
Hi, Kimberly. Just fine, how are you? Nice to see you again.

It’s nice to see you too. So you just facilitated an open spaces event if you will. Tell me a little bit more about that.
Well what I just did was open space for the participants here at Green Cities Florida. I literally opened the space for them to take advantage of the opportunity to convene individual sessions about topics that they have an interest in that they felt they’d like to explore more from this wonderful conference of two days that they have a concern about, perhaps they have a model they would just like to describe that they see has worked. Perhaps they have a fear they’d like to express, just whatever at this point is on their mind that they would like to take advantage of an opportunity to explore more deeply. So my job as the facilitator which really is a misnomer was just to take that responsibility to empower them to do what they want to do which as you see they’re hard at work already doing. They’ve created probably about twenty 45 minute sessions which will occur in just the next less than two hours.

So give me an example of some of the sessions that have been created.
Some of the folks right now are talking about encouraging electric drive in Florida. One young man I know is talking about bringing sustainability education to public schools. One woman has a very specific model that she wanted to present about the triple bottom line tool. Some people have a question, they said, “I’m looking for someone who knows something about this.” So really to take a look at the marketplace which they’ve created for themselves; it’s kind of all over the map.

So what do you expect is going to come out of this open space session?
Well when I have used these tools with other groups, for one thing I think there’ll be a lot of energy and excitement which at the tail end of a long very packed two-day conference is always its own sort of reinforcement rather than the dribbling end of something. Almost always, too, I’d be very surprised if there aren’t some very concrete commitments where people will have said “I’m going to go forward and do this specific thing” or partnerships will have been formed which will enable actions to occur and they are encouraged in these sessions to have very declarative statements and concrete actions to take.

So how has Green Cities been for you so far?
Oh, it’s wonderful. It’s a great privilege in my work to really only work around groups of people who are mission-driven people, who care very deeply about the work of sustainability and what the entails so the great honor and privilege to be with and share time and serve and support people who care deeply about the common good is just always…I get chills just talking about it. Really it’s quite an honor and really a sacred thing. Also the very concrete and actionable sessions which were created in the conference itself, I’ve heard many people talk about the range and depth and just how usable information they’ve gained and the interactions they’ve had so I know people are going to go forward and Green Cities will help Florida become even more engaged in the sustainability imperatives than they are now so I feel very strongly about that.

So have you learned anything new while you’ve been here?
Oh, sure! I learn from everyone and in this field right now especially, I think I’ve mentioned to a couple people here, anyone who builds themselves as an expert in this or that or sustainability…we’re all on a learning journey anyway but particularly in areas like sustainability which so often are new now to plug in, so I learned amazing things about Florida. I mean I was not nearly aware at all about just how engaged Florida and central Florida, Orlando the kind of political commitment which exists here. The kind of very concrete actions which are occurring already I admit I have sort of the Orlando Megalopolis ya know, Disney World only lots of pavement …

Right I was pretty pleasantly surprised as well. I had no idea what was going on here in Florida.
So I intend to be an advocate for that and help people understand that they are doing some really serious things…really good people down there.

So what do you think it means for Green Cities that they had their first of a series of conferences in Florida in a place where people maybe don’t expect sustainability to be at the forefront. What do you think that means?
I think it sends a wonderful message and just as I described it’s sort of not exactly a paradigm shift for me but learning last week in Huntsville Alabama there was a modified Green Cities which actually was a small version of what occurred here over the last two days within just a few hours where a group of 200 civic leaders in Huntsville Alabama came together to envision Green Cities Alabama over several days which will occur further on down the road in the fall or the first part of next year.

Yeah that’s another shocker right? Alabama
I like Huntsville, Alabama. A lot of people who know the kind of work I do…I’m usually traveling internationally and I’m in Washington lots and as I said I live in Asheville, North Carolina work with energy companies in the southeast so friends were saying “Steve, Huntsville?” and “Orlando?” and “Have you changed careers or something?” and so I said I can go forth and say “no.” I mean these are places which ask us to come in and help because they are taking ownership and responsibility for their region so I think that sends a wonderful message and there’s always the usual places of Portland and Burlington and we all know that so the message is not just hopeful but I mean they’re very concrete things with people very engaged in their leadership.

Does it make you excited about the future of sustainability in America?
Oh absolutely. I’ve always been excited about it but with events like this occurring…not just events, mountain top events, but places like this where people come away and get real tools. They fill up their leadership toolbox and they go forth and they use it so it’s, as many of the presentations showed us here we’ve passed the tipping point you know whatever metaphor it is…this is off and running in a bad economy I mean to have a conference with 500 people in this kind of an economy around a topic like this which used to be kind of esoteric and nice if you can afford it on the side after you do real work type of thing. It shows that this is what is going to enable us to do anything else.

Well thanks so much for coming and for talking with me.
Thanks you. I’m delighted to be here.